PlayStation 2 Production Stopped Worldwide

Sony had already decided to stop sending PlayStation 2 shipments to Japan, after the company decided to discontinue its legendary gaming console. Now it seems that the Japan-only decision has been altered into a global decision.

Per reports, Sony has finally decided to end the worldwide production of PlayStation 2 after the console sold 150 million units worldwide during its 12-year journey after first introduced in Japan.

The information was first revealed to The Guardian with the company stating: "At the height of the PlayStation 2's success, the word effectively came to mean video games for a lot of people."

The console, launched way back in 2000, was the successor to the original PlayStation and ended up with a combined collection of more than 10,000 games titles by 2011, with 1.52 billion individual games sold since launch.

"Its success was down to three factors: cunning design, excellent games and great timing. Sony's decision to include a DVD player meant the machine found its way into living rooms, exposing many more to gaming," the report states.

"It trounced its underpowered rivals, the Nintendo GameCube and Sega Dreamcast, and became the exclusive home of must-have games such as Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid - dominating an era in which developers were changing the rules of game design, crafting ambitious cinematic experiences and vast open-world adventures."

While the console had already been discontinued in Japan, the same was waiting to happen all around the world with the company waiting until stocks run out. However, it was still not clear as to how that would happen with the current generation of console gamers opting for PlayStation 3, which seems like a rational choice.

The decision was also not a big surprise for many as it was surely expected that Sony would eventually kill off the PlayStation 2 although it boasted a decent sales number over the years.

Piers Harding-Rolls, a senior analyst at IHS Screen Digest, said: "Sony also had a hugely successful marketing strategy, especially its association with football, which saw it gain great penetration in many territories where console gaming was underdeveloped. The PS2 went beyond the first PlayStation by expanding its audience in its later years, introducing lifestyle and social games that helped drive adoption in the mid-2000s."